Melatonin

Macayla has to take melatonin to help her sleep at night. Our doctors suggested this to us. It is a natural substance that we produce in our bodies that essentially helps us slow down to fall asleep. According to our doctors, people with neurological conditions may have trouble producing melatonin properly. So we have to give it to Macayla. However, the normal starting dose form an adult is 3 mg. Macayla takes 12 mg and sometimes 15 mg. The doctors stated that this is where to start with children like Macayla. It has helped to keep her sleep more consistent, but there are no guarantees on some nights. The best thing we have found though for anyone who has a feeding tube is a melatonin capsule made by Life Time (a vitamin and herbal company) and we get it from a local health store. It can be opened and sprinkled in 20 ml of orange juice with 20 ml of water so that it can be pushed through the feeding tube. We have used tablets and crushed them, but they don’t dissolve or mix well at all. This is one of those practical things I thought might be helpful to others with children on melatonin. It’s like doubling diapers for quicker changes on the road.